Lee Man-soo, a former gold glove catcher and MVP in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), was instrumental to the development of baseball in Laos. He is now up to a new task: developing baseball in Vietnam.
"I've been working with Lee Juang-hyung of the Korea International School in Hanoi," Lee told the Korean press. "I plan to donate talent for Vietnam, a country that hasn't seen much baseball."
Lee Man-soo has an overall plan for Southeast Asia: "My dream is to develop baseball in all of the five countries of the Indochina peninsula: Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar."
Lee was born in 1958 and was one of the players competing in the inaugural KBO season in 1982. He signed for the Samsung Lions and hit the first home run in the history of the league.
He earned MVP honours in 1983. He won the first Korean Triple Crown (1984) and led the Samsung Lions to the league's title in 1985. Lee Man-soo won 5 Gold Gloves (1983-1987) as a catcher.
He retired in 1997 and coached in the Major League Baseball (MLB) Chicago White Sox organization from 2000 to 2007. He then returned to KBO and coached for the SK Wyverns from 2007 to 2011. He managed the Wyverns from 2011 to 2014 before moving to Laos.
Cover picture courtesy of the Korea Times
